'Thankful for books' - Library Life

I know Thanksgiving is over and everyone is in full on holiday mode, but I thought better late than never to share with you my November bulletin board display.I made a giant turkey that is very Thankful for books!

I made the turkey out of construction paper and drew him by hand. The letters were made with my silhouette machine.

Read Anything Good Lately? - The Familiars

So I have been trying to catch up on some reading lately, so I have
decided to introduce a new section to the blog, Read Anything Good Lately? I read quite a bit and I am especially fond of Fantasy and Sci/fi. I also read a lot of Children's and YA novels so if you were expecting reviews of the latest and greatest in more mature literature sorry to disappoint. For the very first installment I give you, the Familiars by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson.

Around Thanksgiving I was excited to have my family stay with me. This included my Dad's girlfriend Louisa and her daughter, Danielle and husband Brian. While talking Brian mentioned that his brother wrote a kids book so of course my hears perked up. So I was excited to see that we had it at my library!

The Familiars takes place in the magical world of Vastia. Young witches and wizards are taught magical abilities along with an animal companion known as a familiar. When Aldwyn a typical fish thieving back alley cat accidentally gets chosen as a young boys familiar he is thrusts on an adventure he is unprepared for. Aldwyn meets up with two other familiars, sparrow Skylar and a tree frog named Gilbert. Together they have to go on a quest to save their loyals (their human companions) that have been kidnapped by the corrupt queen of Vastia, Loranella.

The Familiars is a quick read but is jam packed with adventure. The book does a good job appealing to kids, its an easy read and the content, although suspenseful at times is not scary. Although the content is geared toward a younger set it, it doesn't skimp out on the fantasy and epic novel tropes we have come to expect, including humor, side quests and of course and open ending. The Familiars does take a new spin on the magically fantasy book, the main characters are the animal companions! The supporting characters end up becoming those given great power and tremendous responsibility.

The adventures of the Familiars continue in the Secret of the Crown and Circle of Heros. Production on an animated movie version of the Familiars has begun. The film's release is expected in 2014.

Spooky Bats - Kids Craft

Attention all Librarians, Teachers, Moms anyone in need of a simple kids craft! Check out my spooky bats!

I had a lot of fun developing programs for this years Summer Reading Club with the theme, Dream Big - Read! There was a lot of fun different ways to interpret the theme. Since author/illustrator Brian Lies created the art work for the theme this year, I felt it necessary to use his book, Bats at the Library as inspiration for this kids craft! The book was also a great companion to the craft! With Halloween around the corner these bats make perfect decorations that your youngin's can help make!

Materials & Tools: 

• Bat Shape
• Oak Tag (in both black and white)
• Tissue paper (in black and purple)
• Clothes pin
• Crayons
• Scissors
• Glue

Instructions:

• Create a bat body out of black oak tag
• Cut out two circles out of white oak tag
• Cut two pieces of tissue paper (black and purple) that measure 15 x 9 inches

• Glue eyes to the bat body 
• Use your crayons to decorate and customize

• Place your bat face down and get your clothes pin ready! 
• Dab some glue on the back of the bat body and attach the clothes pin 

• While your bat is drying, time to work on his wings! 
• Grab your pieces of tissue paper and lay one over the other, then begin to accordion fold the paper
• Pinch in the middle and fluff out your wings

• Take your wings and clip it to the clothes pin 

• Turn your bat over and clip him any where you want!

Summer Reading Club Craziness!

In the midst of my life altering crazy summer, would you have thought work would be a welcome distraction. Not so because it was just as crazy! Its the summer always means the Summer Reading Club. Sadly this week is the last week, but I wanted to share how I helped decorate the library.

I was really loving the theme this year, Dream Big Read! Visions of night time creatures and bed time sleepiness and the night sky immediately came to mind. So we tried to make the room look like a dream wonderland.

The table is always something in keeping with the theme. Last year for the travel theme, we made it a travel agency desk. This year I suggested making a bed frame and it came out really great! We always use foam board for a lot of decorations but the bed was pretty warped as the paint dried. So I am going to try and think of a possible solution for next year.

Does that window behind the bed look familiar? If you are a librarian or teacher you will know. Its from the bedtime classic, Good Night Moon. My department manager had asked that we incorporate the story in the decorations and this window was a good idea because it not only fits the theme and looks great, but it fills up a bunch of dead space. I also made some pin wheels featuring the title of the theme. I am never one for glitter but it gave the pin wheels some pizazz!

Morgan did some amazing stuff as well. She took over the children's room window. It looks out into the rest of the library. Her and other library aides have done some amazing stuff with it. This year I remember her being a little stumped as to what to make. I suggested constellations. She took that idea and ran with it and made this amazing display!

We were searching for some ideas and inspiration. We spend some time drooling over the amazing displays by Rachel Moani. Her displays are incredible and really inspired us. I was excited because this helped show us what library displays could be ! It goes way beyond the ol' " {insert-witty-pun}...with a good book" it gets old after a while. So check her stuff out! Morgan used her tutorial on creating a giant book with vine popping out of it. It covered up this ugly column that is always a design issue!

I also had to come up with an idea for my own display!  I actually had the idea for my display way back in March. I got some inspiration while searching Pinterest. I was looking for Dr. Suess quotes when I came across this one....

I loved it and thought it went well with our theme. I think I had also recently watched Hugo around then so I put the two things together and thought it would be great to use the iconic image from a Trip to the Moon.

First a did a sketch of my design, which I always do and its really helpful because I kept getting some more ideas from it!  I decided that the moon would be done on a piece of foam board cut out in the shape of the moon. The rocket would be a seperate piece of foam board giving it a 3 dimensional look. I was originally going to to paint my moon man a yellow color but while digging around the craft closet I found some old yellow cellophane and it looked great without having to paint it! The next step was putting it all together. The library already had starry gossamer so I hunt that up. Ann Marie hung him up and made the rocket pop out! Then I made a shooting star with the the first part of the quotation on it, then put the rest throughout the rest of the scene. Here is the finished product. 

Now that its over we have to start coming up with some ideas for the fall and for my favorite time of year Halloween! I of course will keep you posted.

Dr. Seuss & Truffala trees!

In the Children's library world March is associated with a very special birthday, Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)

This year I got to do a few special things. First I made this super awesome bulletin board.
I found this Dr. Seuss quote and loved it, it also fit in the library perfectly. Then I referred one of the Cat in the Hat books and sketched a mock up. I gave to Port Jefferson Library's resident artist, AnnMarie and she make a large scale version and TA -DA! it looks pretty neato

My Dr. Seuss March madness did not end there! If you must know the Lorax feature film was recently released (which I really hate what cinema has done to some Dr. Suess classics but that's besides the point). I figured it would grab the attention of some kiddies so I did a Lorax program! And if you don't know the Lorax.. why he speaks for the trees! So I decided we should make some Truffala trees.

You can to it's really easy! All that you need is:
Construction paper (I used yellow and red)
Glue
Tissue Paper
Stapler

• I took the red construction paper and made two circles measuring 6 inches
• Then I stapled them together in three spots and left and opening on the bottom
• Then kids then decorated the red circle with different colored tissue paper squares (this is the top puffy part of our tree)
• Then they got to decorate the yellow piece of construction paper that was 8 x 11 inches 
• After decorating the tree trunk we rolled it up and stapled it then place the puffy part on the top
• Instant truffala tree!

Doodle Day: A Children's program

I recently held a program form some young-ins at the library and it was very successful! So I decided to share it with the world!

 A while back I ordered this book, Doodle Day by Ross Collins. It was a silly little story and I loved the concept. It's about a little boy, Harvey who loves to draw. His Mom discourages from drawing on this particular day because it is Doodle Day! And everyone knows you should not draw on doodle day. Harvey thinks she's a little nutters, and draws anyway. To his surprise his little doodle comes to life. He tries to draw more doodles to get rid of the others but it ends in the near destruction of his town.

I liked the story so much when I read it I decided to create a program out of it! The idea was real simple, read the book, give the kids paper and colored pencils and let their imaginations run wild.

It was fun to read the story aloud. I got the kids to interact for example I asked "if they were in Harvey's shoes what would they draw?" They gave me all sorts of silly answers and they enjoyed it. After we read the story it was doodling time. But before they sat I joked, " Just be careful what you draw on Doodle Day." F.Y.I. I get a lot of flack for my bad jokes but to those 8 year-olds I am like George Carlin.

Getting back to the program, the kids loved it. And it was the most simple thing and little to no prep time. A lot of programs are usually very involved and we have to going over a big step-by-step process and kids get so caught up in making their craft look EXACTLY like the sample. Which is not what kids crafts are about... its about them doing their own thing and exercising their minds and imagination (which is hard to do in the digital age) It was nice seeing them do what ever they felt like. They created all kinds of master pieces. A lot of kids wanted to make monsters and robots (kids after my own heart). I also put out some How-To drawing books and they grabbed those to use.

I was also able to tie the program into a contest that google is having. A Children's librarian at work, Sandy, brought the contest to our attention. The contest calls for kids in grades K - 12 to redesign the google logo (also known as a google doodle) and this years theme is if "If I could travel in time I would go..."

Here is a sample I made! We are handing out forms at the reference desk and encouraging kids to make some great doodles! The contest goes until March 20th. For more info check out there website.

-Sarina